Today a jury of eight men and four women convicted Allen Andrade with first degree murder and bias crime for the murder of 18-year-old transgender woman Angie Zapata.
A friend of mine had said that Zapata should have been open about her status as transgender, possibly preventing such a tragedy. During the trial it was revealed that the dating site where Zapata and Andrade met catered to the gay, bisexual, and transgender community, so this was no eHarmony or Match.com arrangement. In those 36 hours, Andrade also attended a court appearance for Zapata's traffic ticket. She was summoned by her birth name "Justin" with Andrade present in court. It was also revealed by the prosecution that in the course of their 700 text messages that Andrade must have known that Zapata was born a male.
I think that the hate crime charge here is important because it dismissed the defense's argument that Andrade acted out of rage. Andrade's homophobic phone conversations and awareness of Zapata's status implies that his action was premeditated; he acted based on his hatred toward transgenders.
Justice has been served.
It's good to know that the world is still a just and fair place some times. What a slimeball.
ReplyDeleteI came across this quote on my daily calendar "Wild Words from Wild Women" and it sort of seemed to relate to your last two entries. "Men's love of women is filled with rage." (Nancy Friday, who wrote the book on female sex fantasies)
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